Long time gone....

Well it's been a very rough 6 months or so here (very ill relatives, and two deaths in the family to boot) as such time has been a distinct premium. When that happens the first thing to go is any hobby time and that's what's happened here.
However I'm starting to make my way back into the realms of hobby time and have managed to actually get brush to metal and have painted this as my first offering of the year.

Tutorial - Basic Techniques - Overbrushing/Drybrushing

Following on from the last Basic skills tutorial (which can be found here) we were left with a Space Wolf base coated and washed to really darken those recessed areas (see Picture below)

This tutorial will introduce the first step in highlighting the raised area of the miniature, and this step is called Overbrushing, while often called drybrushing, this is actually incorrect as drybrushing and overbrushing share the same technique but differ in paint saturation.

Tutorial - Basic Techniques - The Wash

I was in my local Games Workshop yesterday to do some painting and due to some case confusion picked up my space wolves not my high elves thereby confounding the painting plan, however being in the store anyway I was chatting to another fellow hobbyist, and as these thing always do talk very quickly turned to painting techniques.
It transpired that my fellow hobbyist had little experience with the wonder that is the world of washes and it has occurred to me that there may be a few painters out there that don't know just what washes will do for them.
So for my first ever Tutorial I have chosen this very topic.

Showcase - High Elves Frost Pheonix

Todays showcase is yet another of the many, many, many high elves that will populate this blog (after all that is the army I am currently building very slowly).

Due to the size of this model and my somewhat limited photographic skills these do not follow my normal 'showcase' photo format but features a somewhat more 'in game' feel.

Showcase - Chaos Space Marine Dark Apostle

As a bonus post for the day I thought I would put up another one of those miniatures that's just hanging about in the battle bunker (that's the nickname given to my hobby room in case you hadn't guessed).
Again this was done for a painting contest with the theme of Heroes in the Peterborough Games Workshop store (my local one) and features a couple of minor conversions.

WIP - High Elves Spearmen

Well silly season is upon us and everyone is gearing up to party or working overtime (that would be me :( ) as such hobby time is quite slim on the ground at the moment however I have managed to find a bit of time to make a start on some spearmen for the high elves army that I am building at the moment. So it is time for yet another Work In Progress picture

At this stage they have only been undercoated white and very roughly painted with a base steel colour (Citadel Base Paint - Leadbelcher) as much of these miniatures is scale mail or helm this seemed the most sane base to work from.

Showcase : Battle For Blood Island - Warhammer Style

A while ago my local Games Workshop Store (Peterborough) ran a contest with the title and theme of conflict, it was intended to be a conflict between two (or more) heroes battling it out, This is what I entered

Battle For Blood Island